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by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

A number of Israeli settlers constructed a chicken farm on a privately-owned Palestinian land, in Khallit Ein Masour area, near Al-Khader city in the Bethlehem district.

Ahmad Salah, member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, told the Quds Press news agency that a number of extremist Israeli settlers stole land that belong to members of Sbeih family, and installed their chicken farm.

Salah added that the land in question is on a mountain that has no power or water supplies, and no road access.

“The settlers are using primitive means to transport water and other supplies to the land”, he said, “They are eying at occupying 10 Dunams of land that surround the farm”.

Salah further stated that the new outpost is close to the Daniel illegal settlement, and that the settlers will likely try to bring mobile homes in order to officially establish their outpost.

Extremist settlers, including the Hilltop Youth settlement movement, focus their land theft on sensitive areas in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; they establish their illegal outposts on top of hills, mountains, on fertile lands such as the Jordan Valley and around West Bank villages and towns.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain recently published a report stating that settler population in the West Bank grew by more than 15000 last year, and that the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories currently exceeds 350.000.
The Guardian added that the population registry in Israel recorded a %4.5 increase of the settler population in the past year.

The Guardian also quoted Israel Today (Yisrael Hayom) stating that additional 300.000 Jewish settlers live across the pre-1967 border in occupied East Jerusalem.

Consecutive Israeli governments legalized dozens of illegal settlement outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian lands while the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his fundamentalist coalition partners are considering legalizing more outposts.